Staying up

 The news is not good. Politics sucks. No visiting. No breakfasts with friends. The pandemic continues mutating. The virus owns us. Masks forever.

My accountant sends a packet every year. It's my clue to shove together my paperwork and head down to her office in the village. The packet is on my kitchen counter. I never open it; I know what to do.

I looked out at several inches of snow this morning. I considered shoveling, so I opened the door to take measure of the white stuff.  Today's snow flakes are snow shards, little shafts of ice coming straight down. I looked at the clock; it's too early to call Donnie. Or even text him, I think, from his complaint at the Christmas snow dump, "You know I'm not up that early!"

It was only 9:30 in the morning. I have no idea of the expanse of "too early", so I'll wait till noon to rouse Donnie. The forecast looks decent for the end of the week, so I texted Pam, I'll be along when the weather breaks. Pam has been my friend since 1990 and my accountant shortly thereafter.

I was typing away at some paragraph when another text came in: "Remember I'm not doing indoor appts this year, so you won't even have to get out of the car!"

That was a literal gob smacker! 

Of course she probably isn't. I bet the packet even says so.

It's merely February. Three entire months until I can hang mandevilla and button jackets around them when there is a freeze warning.

Looking for amusement, here are some pictures that came from Laura, the young lady who graduated high school and cannot attend in person beauty school training until October. She probably could start her Kent State courses now, but not in person, and she is an in person sort of student.

So, she got a job at Chipolte, up to 39 hours a week, prepping and grilling. She was rooming with a friend (adult), and being nicely molded for the future, I thought, when hey, presto, she found an "apartment". It literally is the sun room addition to a post war home. It is the length of the double garage, so I'll guess it's as much as forty feet by thirty. It has an entire wall of windows, a closet sized bathroom and a kitchen sink, stove and refrigerator.

Laura moved into the Enormous Room at Thanksgiving. She took her bed, her dresser, her desk, her wardrobe. The latter is enormous, and she cannot bear to part with a thread. She'll figure it out.

The wardrobe lived in stacks on the floor. I thumbed through the internet, in search of an inexpensive solution. Laura helped me, and I had to explain why so many of her choices wouldn't work. The one we picked is brilliant:

I advocated for this because it's advertised to hold 2,000 pounds, and will come apart again to move. Better yet, she wound up with two units. The first was missing one of those structural poles. I emailed them with the part description and part number. They sent an entire unit. I got no answer to my inquiry to return. So, it's under her bed, and Uncle Tom can fabricate the missing pole.

When I set out to put some "stuff" into this room, Laura struggled with choosing between a closet solution or a kitchen solution. I eventually figured that out and set out to solve her kitchen problem, too. This is what the "grown ups" do, for crying out loud. Now she has a proper prep area too; no more chopping onions on thin air.

And that probably is all I can squeeze into the enormous room.